DISTINCT Function (DAX)

Returns a one-column table that contains the distinct values from the specified column. In other words, duplicate values are removed and only unique values are returned.

Note

This function cannot be used to return values into a cell or column on a worksheet; rather, you nest the DISTINCT function within a formula, to get a list of distinct values that can be passed to another function and then counted, summed, or used for other operations.

The results of DISTINCT are affected by the current filter context. For example, if you use the formula in the following example to create a measure, the results would change whenever the table was filtered to show only a particular region or a time period. If you want to prevent filtering from affecting the items in the list, use the ALL function to remove filters from the specified column and table, like this:

Related Functions

The VALUES function is similar to DISTINCT; it can also be used to return a list of unique values, and generally will return exactly the same results as DISTINCT. However, in some context VALUES will return one additional special value. For more information, see VALUES Function (DAX).

The following formula counts the number of unique customers who have generated orders over the internet channel. The table that follows illustrates the possible results when the formula is added to a PivotTable.

Note that you cannot paste the list of values that DISTINCT returns directly into a column. Instead, you pass the results of the DISTINCT function to another function that counts, filters, or aggregates values by using the list. To make the example as simple as possible, here the table of distinct values has been passed to the COUNTROWS function.

Unique Internet customers

Column Labels

Row Labels

Accessories

Bikes

Clothing

Grand Total

2001

1013

1013

2002

2677

2677

2003

6792

4875

2867

9309

2004

9435

5451

4196

11377

Grand Total

15114

9132

6852

18484

Also, note that the results are not additive. That is to say, the total number of unique customers in 2003 is not the sum of unique customers of Accessories, Bikes and Clothing for that year. The reason is that a customer can be counted in multiple groups.